Okay, so I did go over to my mother’s house and have Easter dinner with the fam on Sunday.

But prior to that, it was all rockabilly, all the time — I attended the Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekender — and this time (my third) I had my bearings. I say that, but got so caught up in the sensory overload that I didn’t tweet and post photos the way I promised. Y’all will forgive me for living fully in the moment, won’t you?

The first photo I took was of my new female protagonist, Kit Craig’s, girlfriends. Or who I imagine Kit’s girlfriends to be. My husband, James, and I were walking by the bar and I stopped him dead, saying, “OMG, those are Kit’s girlfriends! They don’t know it, of course, but that’s them!”

So I went back, and very weirdly asked to take a photo of them. This is Carla and Elaina. They were incredibly sweet, looked gorgeous (I love their cupcake dresses) and Elaina is an artist, so we exchanged cards (check out her fantastic work here – it’s so vibrant and beautiful, just like her!).

Let me also point out that I’m wearing the full slap here – ie., full make-up as I had a morning photo shoot that day, and these girls still make me look washed-out. Pin-up makeup is de riguour at these events, and if you’re not sporting it, you’re just not seen. (After two days of donning it, I can tell you it’s also friggin’ exhausting.)

My big band photos are on my other camera (drat!) but trust me, there was lindy hopping and jive contests going on all over the hotel. I didn’t get any photos of the Burlesque competition, but I touched on that aspect in a previous post with my lovely friend, ChaCha, who was also in attendance (by the way, fake names are a part of the subculture. Everyone has them. Some I saw: Lux De Ville, Masuimi Max, Angelique Noire, Coco Lectric, Jolie du Beau, Audrey DeLuxe. I’m trying to think of a good one for myself, but I gave them all away to Kit’s girlfriends, so I’ll have to get back to you on that.)

And on Saturday, a car show. Vintage American cars are also a huge – and another fun – part of rockabilly culture, and these guys take it seriously.

This guy doesn’t look as happy to be at the car show as we were:

But it was a stunning day (and warm — thus the vendors were doing a brisk sale in parasols!) and the pin-ups had a GREAT day!

I had to have my pic taken with this beauty, too:

I have a few more images, but James took off with my other camera so I’ll upload them later to my gallery page. I’ve started a rockabilly grouping there, and I have a feeling it isn’t going to be lacking in the least for images.

So I think I’ve given you a brief intro/overview into the rockabilly world over the past few posts. What do you guys think? Extreme glam, extreme cars, big bands, and tattoos. Look like fun? For a girl like me, who has little opportunity to get dolled up in daily work life, it was like a little escape into another world. I’ll definitely be back at Viva next year.

Happy Monday! Today doesn’t just bring the start of a new work week – I have an “in-between” book that’s been poking at me for a while, and now I’m poking back – but it also ends the much anticipated “Viva” weekend: the Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekender.

As you can see, I had a great time *koff* “researching” the rockabilly lifestyle, and I’ll have pictures for you tomorrow, but today I have some more great – and timely – linkage.

Publishers Weekly has run a Q&A about THE TAKEN, including info on how my rockabilly reporter, Kit Craig, and my busted angel/50′s P.I. team came to be.

THE TAKEN also gets some nice airtime in PW’s feature article, The New (Para)Normal. The article’s focus is actually horror, but as befitting the paranormal genre, it lists a broad range of subgenres and authors. Of my new supernatural noir trilogy, it says:

Originality, a rare commodity in such a frequently tapped genre, is also a hallmark of Vicki Pettersson, whose The Taken (Harper Voyager, June) inaugurates her Celestial Blues series … Diana Gill, executive editor for Harper Voyager, noted that the book “appeals to both the supernatural and mystery audiences…”

You can read the whole of the article online if you’re a subscriber, but if you love paranormal fiction it’s certainly worth making a trip to the bookstore to pick up a hard copy too.

As for my Q&A, here’s my talk with Publishers Weekly. I’m thrilled to finally be able to speak so opening about Griffin Shaw and Kit Craig — I can’t wait for you to meet them!

As I said in yesterday’s post, the Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekender is going on in Vegas this weekend, and I’ll be heading in later today, after sending my latest ms to my editor, along with a letter about the book that can be summed up in one word: Help!

After yesterday’s post – and hey, man, if I knew all it took to get comments was some victory rolls, I’d have donned some sooner; thank you ALL for commenting – I realized that some people may still be a bit sketchy on what rockabilly is and why. Why live that lifestyle? What’s the draw? These are questions I asked myself upon beginning research for THE TAKEN, and attending Viva was the way I got some answers.

Fortunately for you, reporter Cindi Reed asked the same questions for her readers in this week’s Vegas Seven. The article is called Of Poodle Skirts and Pomade, and like me, Cindi is an interloper in the rockabilly subculture. So why do we both find it so much fun? Cindi says:

Yes, music plus shopping plus dancing plus cool cars equal fun. But what is it about the ’50s (and early ’60s) that is eternally appealing? I have plenty of smarty-pants, over-thinking-it reasons. The biggest is nostalgia for a simpler and better time. In the ’50s, we were fresh off the victory of World War II and the good ol’ USA was king of the world. Since then, we’ve traded the G.I. Bill for crushing student debt, the middle class for class warfare and innovation for outsourcing. Everything else that wasn’t actually better (like percolating coffeemakers and the Cold War) is glossed over with a patina of selective memory and wistfulness. What was a legitimate fear then—say nuclear annihilation by the Soviet Union—seems quaint now that we know everything turned out all right.

That’s just a portion of the article, and she interviews people who are seriously involved in the subculture, including a modern-day pin-up and a burlesque dancer. You can go here to read more, including MY answers to the above. By the way, she also did a great job of introducing Kit Craig, my female protag in THE TAKEN, to her readers — which I’m incredibly thankful for since the book isn’t out until June.

Okay, so I’m off to compose my Help! letter, but I’ll leave you with a terribly mysterious photo from this morning’s 5 am photo shoot on the Strip for Vegas Magazine. It was 48 degrees, dark and blustery, but don’t worry. You won’t see any of that – or the dirt lot – come June.

So as you all know by now my main female character in the new Celestial Blues series, Katherine “Kit” Craig, is a woman who lives the rockabilly lifestyle in earnest. She dresses only in vintage midcentury clothing – actually, anything cute from the pinup period of the 40’s through the Mad Men cocktail culture of the ‘60’s – and her belongings are equally curated, from her vintage bar cart to her convertible car. She swing dances and goes thrifting and attends car parks and tiki conventions. She lives nostalgically and is always and ever era appropriate.

A bit different from my previous protag, Joanna Archer, isn’t she?

Anyway, I want to introduce her to you a bit more in the future, but right now I’m focused on her rockabilly lifestyle because, frankly, it was the most fun I’ve ever had researching a subject for a book — and the strangest thing is that while I was exerting my influence and thoughts on THE TAKEN, my subject matter was also influencing me. Now I don’t have the dedication to be able to commit in such an extreme way to an alternative lifestyle, and I think that’s why I admire those who do, but rockabilly is so tactile and fun and alive that its influence has stayed with me, broadened my life, and taught me even more about the human condition. That’s absolute manna for me, folks.

Anyway, that’s why I’m so excited about the annual Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekender being held today through Sunday here in Las Vegas. It’s all rockabilly, all the time – and up on the to-do list for me is big bands, swing dancing, burlesque shows, car shows, vintage shopping, and people watching (the very best part, IMHO).

There will be pictures.

For now, here’s me at the Rockabilly Weekender last year, doing research (koff) for THE TAKEN. As I said, the people-watching was the best part, and I wanted to see what it was like for those women – like my girl, Kit – who do participate full-time in this lifestyle. So I took a series of pics of my transformation from normal ol’ me into a rockabilly chick. To start, nobody even noticed me as I arrived looking like plain Jane – no hair, makeup, or period clothing. I grabbed a Pabst Blue Ribbon, though, and immediately started feeling it:

And I just had to take this woman’s picture (below). She was so perfect, from the Betty bangs to the bamboo earrings to the hairnet and umbrella – accessories are everything:

How on earth do you compete with that sort of extreme glamour?

Well, I started by heading to the Stop Staring vendor booth, where the owner, Alicia Estrada, quickly hooked me up with some sweet dresses (plural because I couldn’t stop at one. So sue me for the girly moment). Here’s my purchase, step 2 (after the Pabst) in the transformation:

In retrospect, I’m not curvy enough for a wiggle dress … so the swing dress I also bought should come in handy this year.

Up next, makeup. No pics of that as I had to do it myself, and – I should get my showgirl card taken away for this – but I didn’t have pancake makeup. A major faux pas in the show and rockabilly world. I did have red lips, though, and – hey, man – any excuse to don lashes again. Writing is fulfilling, but a bit lacking on the glamour side ifyaknowwhaddImean.

On to hair…

They have on-site styling, and believe me, these girls are always busy. So what did I choose for my first-ever rockabilly hairstyle? Victory rolls, of course!

Almost there…bought me some shoes, 40′s style, and now I was getting some traction, and feeling like I was starting to fit in:

Now obviously living the rockabilly lifestyle is about far more than playing dress up, but I did it for a day, and one thing that astounded me was the attention I received outside of the Viva con. Inside, I was just another rockabilly girl, and it felt good to be included, if only for a night. Again, the lifestyle is edgy and vibrant and alive, and I’m so lucky to get to play with it for three whole books.

But the hubs and I later decided to check out the chandelier bar at the Cosmopolitan so as I wore victory rolls out into Vegas, and around girls dressed in the tightest, shortest, stretchiest fabric possible – like a Snooki or a Fauxdashian – I was startled by the attention I received. I got the second glance, yeah, but moreover I was treated like a lady. (It reminded me of the famous Edith Head quote: “Your dresses should be tight enough to show you’re a woman, and loose enough to show you’re a lady.” Rock on, Edith.

And as the woman I interviewed about the rockabilly lifestyle for THE TAKEN said, “I don’t know of anyone who learns about rockabilly and doesn’t think it’s cool. And if you pair any woman with beautiful hair, pancake makeup, fake eyelashes, and red lips, you end up with this super fem glamour – it almost makes you Everywoman.”

Everywoman, huh?

Maybe my girl, Kit, isn’t so unlike Joanna Archer after all.

Later, gators. Off to find a Pabst.

Wow.

My first gold (well, red) star:

The Taken

In a world where angels can be monsters, Griffin Shaw, a murdered PI turned tough-guy soul-collector, and Las Vegas reporter Katherine “Kit” Craig lock horns and hearts in this supernatural noir mystery from veteran paranormal romance author Pettersson (the Signs of the Zodiac series). Kit is a rockabilly devotee of the 1950s who passionately pursues the human element behind the news. Grif’s from the actual 1950s; dead 50 years, he’s now an angel who collects just-murdered souls like Kit’s photographer friend Nicole, killed while investigating a child prostitution ring that serves the rich and famous. After Grif loses his wings for breaking the rules to help Nicole, he decides the time is right to solve his wife’s long-ago murder—and his own. Meanwhile, Kit is determined to break the prostitution story and justify Nicole’s death. Pettersson hits every note in the familiar duet of a “reticent, complicated, darkly sexy man” and a luscious, plucky “girl reporter” out to save the world, and laces it with dollops of unconventional angelology. The resulting irresistibly good yarn proves that there’s still plenty of room for brilliant innovation in urban fantasy. Agent: Miriam Kriss, Irene Goodman Literary Agency; author now represented by Peter McGuigan, Foundry Literary + Media. (June)

*

Again, Wow.

Stay tuned: I have a Q&A with PW coming April 9th, and will certainly link then. Meanwhile, I continue to be gratified by the way Celestial Blues is being received by reviewers in these early days. I really can’t wait to get it in to my readers’ hands!

Thank you all for continuing to support me beyond the Zodiac series. I love bringing you new worlds.